L.A. City, County firefighters train to save their own lives

Firefighters representing more than 30 agencies from the greater Los Angeles area and beyond convened Tuesday for an intensive four-day experience to learn how to safeguard their own lives in the line of duty.

The Fire Ground Survival Class, which was hosted by the Los Angeles Fire Department, teaches firefighters how to “get out of a bad situation” while fighting a structural fire and avoid getting into a “Mayday” scenario in the first place, said LAFD Capt. Andy Ruiz, lead instructor for the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The IAFF helped develop and fund the firefighter survival program — billed as the most comprehensive survival skills and Mayday prevention program available — with grant assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. While the national curriculum has been taught to and tested by individual departments in recent years, Tuesday marked the first time the program has been rolled out to all departments in an entire fire area, Ruiz noted.

“This is monumental for the Fire Service,” he said, watching the class at the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center near Dodger Stadium. “It’s the first time in the nation that we’re (instructing) the entire region and that, to me, is huge. And we’re setting the footprint for the rest of the nation because they’re watching us. If it’s successful, they will be using the same (methodology).”

Nationwide, an average of 100 firefighters lose their lives in the line of duty annually, with 58 killed so far this year, Ruiz said, adding that the vast majority die in structural fires due to communication issues, a lack of company unity or complacency.

Firefighters from 31 agencies who are training this week and in similar upcoming sessions will take what they’ve learned back to their own departments. Ultimately, this training — which was made possible as a result of more than $500,000 in grant money — will reach 9,000 firefighters in Region I, Ruiz said, which includes every agency in the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“Everything we teach is based on a line-of-duty death — everything,” Ruiz said. “Somebody put their uniform on and died, and we don’t want it to happen again.”

In addition to classroom time, officials said firefighters will play out life-threatening scenarios — such as being trapped in a confined space, escaping from multi-story windows and getting out when a roof has collapsed — and practice what to do in a blaze when they are trapped, disoriented, running out of air or lost and how to breach a wall or go out a window headfirst.

“Being in a fire is unpredictable — it’s dangerous,” LAFD spokesman Erik Scott said, noting he had the roof of a single-family home collapse on him while fighting a fire about five years ago in North Hollywood, leaving him with severe injuries.

“I can tell you firsthand,” he said, “it does happen, even though you are trying to determine all the instances so you’re not caught in that situation.”

While the number of fires has significantly declined in recent decades, the number of firefighters deaths has not. That is largely due to the use of more combustible, petroleum-based materials in buildings, such as couches and carpeting, said Burbank Fire Department Battalion Chief David Schmitt, who was assisting with the training.

While a candle or cigarette dropped on a couch 50 years ago usually confined itself to the couch, today such a fire would likely spread to the entire room in the same amount of time, he said.

For years, he added, trainers did not take into consideration some of these evolving factors, but they’ve had to change their techniques in light of new realities on the ground.

“If there is a life in danger, we’re going to risk our lives to save that life,” Schmitt said. “If it’s just a building, especially an abandoned or vacant building, we’re not going to risk a life.

“Whereas we’ve been doing that for so many years and we were successful, we can’t go in and have that offensive line all the time because the way the fires are burning have changed so much.”